Halbig v. Burwell: A blow to 'Obamacare' and a boon for the rule of law

The U.S. Court of Appeals, in a 2-1 decision, has held that subsidies cannot be granted to enrollees in the federal Affordable Care Act exchanges operating in 36 states. A lack of subsidies will induce the young and healthy to drop coverage, causing significant price increases in ACA plans. This, in turn, will lead to more people dropping coverage and further price increases — and so on and so forth. In 36 states, Obamacare may well be on a path to extinction.

Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid made this problem for themselves. They wrote legislation that was poorly crafted and even less well understood. When the American people in their various districts reacted, notably electing Scott Brown, a Republican, to a seat in Massachusetts (!), previously held by Teddy Kennedy (!), the Democratic leadership ignored the message. They chose to force legislation through the use of party-line votes (on Christmas Eve, no less) and procedural maneuvering.

The problems with the law could not be fixed because doing so would necessarily involve Republicans. So, the Democratic leadership decided to push forward with a fundamentally flawed law rather than allow the half of the country whom they don’t represent to have some voice. The particular portion of the law involved in the above lawsuit was clearly intentional — designed to shift the burden of creating exchanges onto the states. The only way to legally change the ACA is for Congress to pass modifying legislation. That is unacceptable to Democrats because then Republican opinions must have a say since the Republicans now control the House and can filibuster in the Senate.

The ruling restores the idea that the law must be implemented as written and that modifications must be made according to constitutionally defined procedure. The president has thus far ignored the rule of law, choosing to unilaterally alter this piece of congressional legislation 42 times — the above issue of subsidies being but one of these unconstitutional changes.

Even now, Obama is declaring that he will go forward with the subsidies in violation of the court’s ruling. The arrogance and lawlessness of this president is absolutely unprecedented. Any citizen who cares for the rule of law, upheld in this decision, should call for the president to faithfully execute the law or step down from office if he cannot fulfill his oath. Given the partisan rancor in the Congress, the Senate would never vote to remove Obama from office. That is the shame of the world, because never did a president deserve removal more.